The Obsidian Chamber - Douglas Preston · 2 DOUGLAS PRESTON & LINCOLN CHILD...

T H EO B S I D I A NC H A M B E R

douglas preston& lincoln child

ObsidianChamber_HCtext1P Also by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child 2016-06-30 20:23:23 iii

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead,is coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by Splendide Mendax, Inc. and Lincoln Child

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Preston, Douglas J., author. | Child, Lincoln, author.Title: The obsidian chamber / Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child.Description: First edition. | New York : Grand Central Publishing, 2016. | Series: Agent PendergastseriesIdentifiers: LCCN 2016022192| ISBN 9781455536917 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781455541676 (large print) |ISBN 9781478938941 (audio book) | ISBN 9781478935278 (audio download) | ISBN 9781455536900(ebook)Subjects: LCSH: Pendergast, Aloysius (Fictitious character)--Fiction. | Government investigators—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Thrillers. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.Classification: LCC PS3566.R3982 O27 2016 | DDC 813/.54--dc23 LC record available athttps://lccn.loc.gov/2016022192

ISBNs: 978-1-4555-3691-7 (hardcover), 978-1-4555-3690-0 (ebook), 978-1-4555-4150-8 (int’l),978-1-4555-4167-6 (large print), 978-1-4555-7172-7 (B&N signed ed.), 978-1-4555-7173-4 (reg. signed ed.)

Printed in the United States of America

RRD-C

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ObsidianChamber_HCtext1P Also by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child 2016-06-30 20:23:23 iv

Even in our sleeppain which cannot forgetfalls drop by drop upon the heartuntil in our own despairagainst our willcomes wisdomthrough the awful grace of God.

—Aeschylus, Agamemnon,as paraphrased by Robert F. Kennedy

ObsidianChamber_HCtext1P Also by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child 2016-06-30 20:23:23 vii

Prologue

November 8

Proctor eased open the double doors of the library to allow Mrs.Trask to pass through with a silver tray laden with a midmorning teaservice.

The room was dim and hushed, lit only by the fire that guttered inthe hearth. Before it, sitting in a wing chair, Proctor could see a mo-tionless figure, indistinct in the faint light. Mrs. Trask walked over andplaced the tray on a side table next to the chair.

“I thought you might like a cup of tea, Miss Greene,” she said.“No thank you, Mrs. Trask,” came Constance’s low voice.“It’s your favorite. Jasmine, first grade. I also brought you some

madeleines. I baked them just this morning—I know how fond youare of them.”

“I’m not particularly hungry,” she answered. “Thank you for yourtrouble.”

“Well, I’ll just leave them here in case you change your mind.” Mrs.Trask smiled maternally, turned, and headed for the library exit. Bythe time she reached Proctor, the smile had faded and the look on herface had grown worried once again.

“I’ll only be gone a few days,” she said to him in a low tone. “My

ObsidianChamber_HCtext1P Prologue 2016-06-30 20:23:23 1

sister should be home from the hospital by the weekend. Are you sureyou’ll be all right?”

Proctor nodded and watched her bustle her way back toward thekitchen before returning his gaze to the figure in the wing chair.

It had been over two weeks since Constance had come back to themansion at 891 Riverside Drive. She had returned, grim and silent,without Agent Pendergast, and with no explanation of what had hap-pened. Proctor—as Pendergast’s chauffeur, ex-military subordinate,and general security factotum—felt that, in the agent’s absence, it washis duty to help Constance through whatever she was dealing with. Ithad taken him time, patience, and effort to coax the story out of her.Even now, that story made little sense and he was unsure what reallyhappened. What he did know, however, was that the vast house, lack-ing Pendergast’s presence, had changed—changed utterly. And so, too,had Constance.

After returning alone from Exmouth, Massachusetts—where shehad gone to assist Special Agent A. X. L. Pendergast on a privatecase—Constance had locked herself in her room for days, takingmeals only with the greatest reluctance. When she at last emerged,she seemed a different person: gaunt, spectral. Proctor had alwaysknown her to be coolheaded, reserved, and self-possessed. But in thedays that followed, she was by turns apathetic and suddenly full ofrestless energy, pacing about the halls and corridors as if looking forsomething. She abandoned all interest in the pastimes that had oncepossessed her: researching the Pendergast family ancestry, antiquar-ian studies, reading, and playing the harpsichord. After a few anxiousvisits from Lieutenant D’Agosta, Captain Laura Hayward, and MargoGreen, she had refused to see anyone. She also appeared to be—Proc-tor could think of no better way to put it—on her guard. The onlytimes she showed a spark of her old self was on the very rare occasionswhen the phone rang, or when Proctor brought the mail back from

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the post office box. Always, always, he knew, she was hoping for wordfrom Pendergast. But there had been none.

A certain high-level entity in the FBI had arranged to keep thesearch for Pendergast, and the attendant official investigation, out ofreach of the news media. Nevertheless, Proctor had taken it uponhimself to gather all the information he could about his employer’sdisappearance. The search for the body, he learned, had lasted fivedays. Since the missing person was a federal agent, exceptional efforthad been expended. Coast Guard cutters had searched the watersoff Exmouth; local officers and National Guardsmen had combedthe coastline from the New Hampshire border down to Cape Ann,looking for any sign—even so much as a shred of clothing. Divershad carefully examined rocks where the currents might have hungup a body, and the seafloor was scrutinized with sonar. But therehad been nothing. The case remained officially open, but the unspo-ken conclusion was that Pendergast—gravely wounded in a fight,struggling against a vicious tidal current, weakened by the batter-ing of the waves, and subjected to the fifty-degree water—had beenswept out to sea and drowned, his body lost in the deeps. Just twodays before, Pendergast’s lawyer—a partner in one of the oldest andmost discreet law firms in New York—had finally reached out toPendergast’s surviving son, Tristram, to give him the sad news of hisfather’s disappearance.

Now Proctor approached and took a seat beside Constance. Sheglanced up at him as he sat down, giving him the faintest smile. Thenher gaze returned to the fire. The flickering light cast dark shadowsover her violet eyes and dark bobbed hair.

Since her return, Proctor had taken it upon himself to look afterher, knowing that this was what his employer would have wanted.Her troubled state roused uncharacteristically protective feelingswithin him—ironic, because under normal circumstances Constance

T H E O B S I D I A N C H A M B E R 3


was the last person to seek protection from another. And yet, withoutsaying it, she seemed glad of his attentions.

She straightened in her chair. “Proctor, I’ve decided to go below.”The abrupt announcement took him aback. “You mean—down

there? Where you lived before?”She said nothing.“Why?”“To . . . teach myself to accept the inevitable.”“Why can’t you do that here, with us? You can’t just go down there

again.”She turned and stared at him with such intensity that he was taken

aback. He realized it was hopeless to change her mind. Perhaps thismeant she was finally accepting that Pendergast was gone—that wasprogress, of sorts. Perhaps.

Now she rose from her chair. “I’ll write a note for Mrs. Trask,instructing what necessities to leave inside the service elevator. I’lltake one hot meal each evening at eight. But nothing for the firsttwo nights, please—I feel over-ministered-to at present. Besides, Mrs.Trask will be away, and I wouldn’t want to discommode you.”

Proctor rose as well. He took hold of her arm. “Constance, youmust listen to me—”

She glanced down at his hand, and then up into his face with a lookthat prompted him to immediately release his grasp.

“Thank you, Proctor, for respecting my wishes.”Rising up on her toes, she surprised him again by lightly kissing

his cheek. Then she turned, and—moving almost like a sleepwalker—headed to the far end of the library, where the service elevator washidden behind a false set of bookcases. She swung open the twin book-cases, slipped inside the waiting elevator, closed it behind her—andwas gone.

Proctor stared at the spot for a long moment. This was crazy. He



shook his head and turned away. Once again, the absence of Pen-dergast was like a shadow cast over the mansion—and over him. Heneeded time to be alone, to think this through.

He walked out of the library, took a turn down the hall, opened adoor that led into a carpeted hallway, and mounted a crooked staircaseleading to the old servants’ quarters. Gaining the third-floor landing,he walked down another corridor until he reached the door to hissmall apartment of rooms. He opened it, stepped inside, and closed itbehind him.

He should have protested her plan more forcefully. With Pender-gast gone, he was responsible for her. But he knew nothing he saidwould have made any difference. Long ago he’d learned that, while hecould handle almost anyone, he was hopeless against her. In time, hemused, with his subtle encouragement, Constance would accept thereality of Pendergast’s death—and rejoin the living . . .

A gloved hand whipped around from behind, seizing him aroundthe rib cage and tightening with immense force.

Taken by surprise, Proctor nevertheless reacted instinctually with asharp downward movement, attempting to throw the intruder off bal-ance; but the man anticipated the reaction and thwarted it. InstantlyProctor felt the sting of a needle jabbed deep into his neck. He froze.

“Movement is inadvisable,” came a strange, silky voice that Proctor,with profound shock, recognized.

He did not move. It stunned him that a man—any man—had got-ten the drop on him. How was it possible? He had been preoccupied,inattentive. He would never forgive himself for this. Especially be-cause this man, he knew, was Pendergast’s greatest enemy.

“You’re far better versed than I in the arts of physical combat,”continued the smooth voice. “So I’ve taken the liberty of evening theodds. What you’re feeling in your neck at the moment is, of course, ahypodermic needle. I have not yet depressed the plunger. The syringe



contains a dose of sodium pentothal—a very large dose. I will ask youonce, and once only: signal your acquiescence by relaxing your body.How you react now will determine whether you receive a dose that ismerely anesthetizing . . .or lethal.”

Proctor considered his options. He let his body slacken.“Excellent,” said the voice. “The name is Proctor, I seem to recall?”Proctor remained silent. There would be an opportunity to reverse

the situation; there was always an opportunity. He only had to think.“I’ve been observing the family manor for some time now. The man

of the house is away—permanently, it would seem. It’s as depressingas a tomb. You might as well all be wearing crepe.”

Proctor’s mind raced through various scenarios. He must pick oneand execute it. He needed time, just a little time, a few seconds atmost . . .

“Not in the mood for a chat? Just as well. I have a great many thingsto do, and so I bid you: good night.”

As he felt the plunger slide home, Proctor realized his time wasup—and that, to his vast surprise, he had failed.



1

Slowly, Proctor swam back up toward consciousness from inkydepths. It was a long swim, and it seemed to take a long time. At lasthe opened his eyes. The lids felt heavy, and it was all he could do notto close them again. What had happened? For a moment he lay mo-tionless, taking in his surroundings. Then he realized: he was on thefloor of his sitting room.

His sitting room.I have a great many things to do . . .All of a sudden, everything came back to him in a mad rush. He

struggled to rise; failed; tried again with still-greater effort, and thistime managed to push himself to a sitting position. His body felt like asack of meal.

He glanced at his watch. Eleven fifteen am. He’d been out just overthirty minutes.

Thirty minutes. God only knew what might have transpired in thattime.

I have a great many things to do . . .With a heroic effort, Proctor staggered to his feet. The room rocked

and he steadied himself against a table, shaking his head violently in

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an attempt to clear it. He paused just a moment, trying to collect bothhis physical and mental faculties. Then he opened the table’s singledrawer, pulled out a Glock 22, and stuffed it into his waistband.

The door to his set of rooms was open, the central hallway of theservants’ quarters visible beyond. He made for the open doorway,steadied himself against its frame, then lurched down the hall like adrunken man. Reaching the narrow back staircase, he grasped the rail-ing tightly and half walked, half staggered down two flights of stairs tothe mansion’s main floor. This effort, and the sense of extreme dangerthat enveloped him, combined to help sharpen his senses. He walkeddown a short corridor and opened the door at the end leading to thepublic rooms.

Here he paused, preparing to call for Mrs. Trask. Then he recon-sidered. Announcing his presence was inadvisable. Besides, Mrs. Traskhad in all probability already left to visit her ailing sister in Albany. Andin any case she was not the person in greatest danger. That person wasConstance.

Proctor stepped out onto the marble floor, preparing to enter the li-brary, ride the elevator to the basement, and take whatever steps werenecessary to protect her. But just outside the library he stopped again.He could see that, within, a table had been overturned, books and var-ious papers spilling over the carpeting.

He glanced around quickly. To his right, the mansion’s grand recep-tion hall—its walls lined with cabinets full of strange displays—was amess. A plinth had been knocked over, the ancient Etruscan cineraryurn previously displayed upon it shattered into pieces. The oversizevase of freshly cut flowers that always stood in the middle of the hall,its contents changed daily by Mrs. Trask, now lay broken on the mar-ble floor, two dozen roses and lilies disarrayed in puddles of water.At the far end of the hall, at the doorway leading to the refectorygallery, one of the cabinet doors was wide open, canted to one side,



half ripped from its hinges. It looked as if someone had grasped it in afrantic attempt to avoid being dragged away.

All too clearly, these were signs of a terrific struggle. And they led—from the library, across the reception hall—directly toward the man-sion’s front door. And the world beyond.

Proctor ran across the hall. In the long, narrow room beyond, hecould see that the refectory table—at which, until recently, Constancehad been occupied with researching the Pendergast family history—was a riot of disorder: books and papers strewn about, chairs knockedover, a laptop computer upended. And at the far end of the room,where a foyer led to the front hall, was something even more dis-turbing: the heavy front door—which was rarely unlocked, let aloneopened—stood ajar, admitting brilliant late-morning sunlight.

As he took in these signs with mounting horror, Proctor heard—from beyond the open door—the muffled sound of a female voice,crying for help.

Ignoring the still-receding dizziness, he raced down the room,pulling the Glock from his waistband. He ran under an archway,through the front hall, then kicked the front door wide and paused un-der the porte cochere beyond to reconnoiter.

There, at the far end of the doorway, a Lincoln Navigator withsmoked windows was idling, facing Riverside Drive. Its closest reardoor was open. Just outside it was Constance Greene, her wristsbound behind her. She was facing away from him, struggling desper-ately; but there was no mistaking the bobbed cut of her hair and herolive Burberry trench coat. A man, also facing away from Proctor, hadhold of her head and was just now pushing her violently into the rearseat and slamming the door behind her.

Proctor raised his gun and fired, but the man leapt over car’s hoodand through the driver’s door, the shot going just wide. Proctor’ssecond shot ricocheted off the bulletproof glass, even as the car accel-



erated with a cloud of rubber and lurched onto Riverside Drive, theform of Constance, still struggling wildly, visible through the tintedrear window. The car roared down the avenue and out of range.

Just before the assailant had leapt into the car, he had turned towardProctor, and their eyes had met. There could be no mistaking theman’s features: his strange bichromatic eyes, the pale, chiseled face,the trim beard and ginger hair and look of cold cruelty . . .This wasnone other than Diogenes, Pendergast’s brother and implacable en-emy, whom they had all believed dead—killed by Constance morethan three years previous.

Now he had reappeared. And he had Constance.The look in Diogenes’s eyes—the ferocity, the dark and perverse

glitter of triumph—was so terrible that, for the briefest of moments,even the stoic Proctor was unmanned. But his paralysis lasted onlya millisecond. Shaking off the dread and the sedative both, he tookoff after the car, running down the driveway and leaping over thetrimmed border hedge with a single bound.

1 0 D O U G L A S P R E S T O N & L I N C O L N C H I L D


2

In his youth Proctor had been an exceptional runner—he’d set arecord on the endurance course during his OSUT that still stood atFort Benning, and he’d kept in peak condition ever since—and he pur-sued the Navigator at the top of his speed. It was now idling at a redlight, a block and a half ahead. Proctor covered the distance in underfifteen seconds. Just as he neared the vehicle, the light turned greenand the Navigator screeched ahead.

Planting his feet on the asphalt, Proctor aimed his Glock at the ve-hicle’s rear tires and fired twice, first at the left, then at the right. Theshots hit home, the rubber of both tires shivering from the impact.But even as he watched, they stiffened again with an explosive hiss.Self-inflating. The Navigator, Diogenes at the wheel, gunned aroundthe vehicle ahead of it and accelerated up Riverside, weaving throughtraffic.

Now Proctor turned and raced back toward the mansion, stuffingthe gun back into his waistband and pulling out his cell phone. He hadonly limited knowledge of Pendergast’s contacts in the FBI and otherfederal agencies; besides, in this situation, calling the FBI would onlyslow things down. This was a matter for local police. He dialed 911.


“Nine-one-one emergency response,” a cool female voice an-swered.

Reaching the mansion, Proctor ducked through the front door andraced through the public rooms to the rear of the structure. For secu-rity and confidentiality, his cell phone was linked to a false name andaddress, and he knew this information would already be appearing onthe operator’s screen. “This is Roger Lomax,” Proctor said, using thecover name, as he opened a false wall panel in the back corridor andsnatched up a special bug-out bag he had prepared for precisely suchan emergency. “I’ve just witnessed a violent abduction.”

“Location, please.”Proctor gave the location as he stuffed the Glock in the bag, along

with extra magazines of ammo. “I saw this man dragging a womanout of a house by her hair, and she was screaming for help at the topof her lungs. He threw her into a car and drove away.”

“Description?”“Black Navigator with smoked windows, headed north on River-

side.” He gave her the license plate number as he grabbed the bag andran through the kitchen toward the garage, where Pendergast’s ’59Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith was housed.

“Please stay on the line, sir. I’m dispatching units to intercept.”Firing up the engine, Proctor peeled out of the driveway and turned

north onto Riverside Drive, laying ten feet of rubber across the asphaltas he accelerated, running first one, then a second red light. Trafficwas thin and he could see ahead for about half a mile. Peering throughthe hazy light, he tried to make out the Navigator, and thought hecould just see it ten blocks ahead.

Accelerating further, he dodged his way between taxis, then ran an-other light to the furious blatting of horns. He knew that, because itwas a possible kidnapping, the 911 operator would notify the Detec-tive Bureau after calling in the marked units. She would also want a lot



more information from him. He tossed the cell phone into the passen-ger seat, line still open. Then he turned on the police radio installedunder the dash.

He accelerated further still, blocks shooting past in a blur. He couldno longer see the Navigator ahead, even at the straightaway just be-fore Washington Heights. The man’s most logical escape route wouldbe the West Side Highway—but there were no entrances along thisstretch of Riverside Drive North. He began to hear sirens; the policehad responded quickly.

Suddenly, in his rearview mirror, he saw the Navigator shoot outonto Riverside Drive from 147th Street, heading south. Diogenes, herealized, had ducked into the one-way street in the wrong directionand turned around.

Lips compressed, Proctor sized up the traffic around him. Then heyanked the steering wheel sharply to the left. At the same time, heused the hand brake to lock the wheels, spinning the car around ina power slide. Another shriek of protesting horns and screeching ofbrakes from the surrounding traffic greeted this maneuver. He fol-lowed through the sliding turn, releasing the handbrake when the carcompleted a 180-degree rotation as he gunned the engine. The big carleapt forward. In the distance now, he could see flashing lights accom-panying the wail of sirens.

Five blocks ahead, he could see the Navigator swinging right ontoWest 145th. That made no sense: 145th quickly dead-ended in theparking lot of Riverbank State Park, the green space built—ironi-cally—atop a sewage treatment plant sandwiched between the Hud-son River and the West Side Highway. Did Diogenes have a fast boatwaiting on the river?

It was the work of half a minute to dodge through traffic and turnthe Rolls sharply onto West 145th. But it was vital he understoodwhat Diogenes intended before proceeding. He brought the car to an

T H E O B S I D I A N C H A M B E R 1 3


abrupt stop and, plucking a small but powerful pair of binoculars fromhis bag, surveyed the landscape ahead: first the road, then the park-ing lot and its adjoining service access lanes. There was no sign of anyblack Navigator. Where the hell had he gone?

Proctor replaced the binoculars. As he did so, he saw out of his pe-ripheral vision a disturbance in the brush to his right. The shoulderbanked away sharply here, angling down toward the north–south rib-bon of the West Side Highway. Foliage and saplings looked freshly cut;there was a thin, dissipating pall of dust—and fresh tire marks gougedinto the dirt.

Proctor raised the binoculars again. There, in the distance, was theNavigator, on the highway, moving north at high speed. He cursed.This set of maneuvers had again given Diogenes at least half a mile’slead.

Gunning the engine once more, he turned the Rolls off the roadand made the lurching, precarious trip down the embankment andonto the highway, where he savagely merged into the oncoming traf-fic, then grabbed the cell phone off the passenger seat. “This is RogerLomax. The suspect vehicle is now moving north on the West SideHighway, approaching the GWB.”

“Sir,” the operator asked, “how can you be sure?”“Because I’m in pursuit.”“Don’t follow it yourself, sir. Let the police handle the situation.”Proctor rarely raised his voice, but he did so at this moment. “Then

get some goddamned heat on that vehicle, and get it now.” He threwthe phone back into the passenger seat, ignoring the responding chat-ter of the operator.

He raced up the West Side Highway as it banked around the Hud-son River Greenway, rising and falling with the contour of the land. Hepushed the Rolls to over a hundred miles an hour, but he knew thatDiogenes would be doing the same. Ahead and above arched the long



slender span of I-95 as it passed over the George Washington Bridge.The Navigator was no longer in sight. Had Diogenes taken the exithelix and headed for New Jersey, or Long Island, or Connecticut? Orhad he stayed on the highway, over the last brief nubbin of Manhattan,and gone north into Westchester?

Proctor cursed again. He cycled through the police bands, heardthe chatter of the marked units responding to the call to be alert fora black Lincoln Navigator with tinted windows heading north on theWest Side Highway. Except that by now the Navigator—one way oranother—would no longer be on the West Side Highway.

The chase was over.



3

Except that it wasn’t.At the last possible moment, following his gut, Proctor took the

exit for the bridge, shearing across three lanes of traffic, barely ableto keep the Rolls under control as it negotiated the sharp, walledramp. He chose the lower level of the bridge because of its re-duced truck traffic and, hence, greater maneuverability and speed.Crackled reports over the police radio were calling in their use-less, negative findings. On the seat beside him, the 911 operator’svoice began to flutter above the threshold of hearing again. Proctorknew that, once the cops turned their attention away from the failedchase, the next person of interest would be himself. He did not havethe time for unwanted questions or—worse—potential detainment.Reaching over, he picked up the cell phone, lowered his window, andtossed it out. He had other prepaid burner phones stowed in thebug-out bag.

Reaching the far side of the bridge and New Jersey, he slowed toseventy as he passed the eastbound toll plaza; he did not want toget pulled over for speeding at such a critical moment. He negoti-ated the tangle of diverging freeways and headed for the I-80 Express


westbound. Fifteen minutes later, he took Exit 65 from the interstate,making for Teterboro Airport.

Proctor had surmised there were only two viable escape optionsopen to Diogenes: to go to ground in some nearby safe house prear-ranged for the purpose, or to take Constance somewhere distant viaprivate transportation. If Diogenes had gone to ground, it was too lateto do anything about it. If he planned on taking her someplace faraway, he could not risk staying in the Navigator. It would be impos-sible to drag a kidnap victim onto a commercial flight or some otherform of public transportation—and his license plate was known. Whatremained as a destination was Teterboro: the closest private airportwith runways capable of handling long-distance aircraft.

He turned onto Industrial Avenue and pulled the Rolls over tothe curb beside the airport’s closest entrance. He scanned the lineof nearby structures: the tower, a fire station, various FBO buildings.There was no sign of the Navigator, but that meant nothing: it couldbe already abandoned behind, or within, any of half a dozen hangars.Opening the driver’s door, he stepped out and quickly scanned therunways for taxiing planes—there were none—then peered up at thesky. A private jet was climbing away, its gear retracting as he watched.But the airspace over the tri-state area was full of planes: there was noway to be certain Diogenes was on that particular one.

Not yet, at any rate.Getting back into the Rolls, he retrieved the vehicle’s laptop, ac-

cessed the Internet, and pulled up the diagram for Teterboro. Next,he checked the AirNav website for summary information on the air-port: latitude and longitude, operational statistics, runway dimen-sions. Teterboro’s two runways were both about seven thousand feetin length, capable of handling nearly any size plane. He noted that theairport serviced around 450 aircraft a day, of which 60 percent weregeneral aviation. Now he scrolled down the web page until he reached



the fixed-base operator information: data on ground handling, avion-ics service, aircraft charters. He committed all this information tomemory.

Putting the Rolls into gear, he entered the airport proper and drovealong the line of buildings until he reached one at the very head of run-way 1. The building was a cavernous hangar with a large sign that readnorth jersey flight training. Grabbing his bug-out bag, he jumpedout of the car and ran toward the building. He glanced inside it brieflyand continued past to the end of the runway itself. The flight school hadhalf a dozen crappy Cessna 152s parked directly on the tarmac. In theclosest one, he noticed, two people were sitting: evidently a pilot and astudent, going over the flight plan for an upcoming lesson.

Fixing a worried look on his face, Proctor ran to the plane, wavingat them to open their windows. The occupants looked out at him.From the expressions on their faces it was immediately evident whowas the pilot and who was the student.

“Can you help me?” Proctor asked, pitching his voice high andquerulous. “Did you just see a man and a woman get on a plane here?”

The men in the Cessna looked at each other.“The woman would have been young, early twenties, dark hair.

The man would have been tall, trim beard, scar on one cheek.”“Mister, you shouldn’t be here without clearance,” said the pilot.Proctor directed his attention to the student: an older fellow who

was clearly excited just to be sitting in the plane. “That was my boss,”Proctor said breathlessly, waving the bag. “He forgot this. I can’t reachhim on his cell. It’s vitally important, he needs information from thedocuments in here.”

“Yes, I saw them,” the student said. “They got on a plane maybe fiveminutes ago. It was waiting for them, right there, on the runway. Thewoman looked sick. She seemed to be staggering all over the place.Maybe she was drunk.”



“What kind of a plane?” Proctor asked.The pilot frowned. “Sir, we can’t be giving—”But the student, clearly an enthusiast, spoke over him. “It was a

twin-engine jet. A Lear. Don’t know the model.”“Yes,” Proctor said. “A Lear. That’s him, all right. Thank you so

much, I’ll try to find some way to contact him.” The pilot opened hismouth to speak again, but before he could Proctor turned and joggedback past the flight school hangar.

In the Rolls once again, he pulled up the FlightAware website and,on the site’s landing page, instructed it to track KTEB: the Interna-tional Civil Aviation Organization code for Teterboro. This broughtup a map of the tri-state area, with Teterboro at its center, overlaidwith the ghostly white shapes of tiny aircraft headed in various direc-tions. Below the map were two panels: “Arrivals” and “Departures.”

Proctor quickly scanned the “Departures” panel. It consisted ofseveral lines of data, listed in reverse chronological order. Each linerepresented an aircraft that had left Teterboro during the past severalhours, and it identified the plane’s tail number, aircraft type, destina-tion, time of departure, and estimated time of arrival.

The time was now 12:45 pm. From the information on the screen,Proctor could see that the most recent planes to depart Teterboro hadleft at 12:41, 12:32, and 12:29 pm. So only one plane had left the airportin the last five minutes.

He checked the aircraft type of the plane that had departed attwelve forty-one. Sure enough, it was listed as LJ45—a Learjet 45. Itwas headed for KOMA. A quick search identified this as the ICAOcode for Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Nebraska.

The website listed the “Ident” or tail number as LN303P. Proctorclicked on this and a new window opened: a map showing the pro-jected path of the flight from New Jersey to Nebraska. The littlesymbol representing the plane had a thin, short tail behind it leading



from Teterboro: a dotted line, which zigged slightly in two places,headed westward ahead of the plane icon, showing the projectedcourse. A row of data at one side of the screen told him the plane had aprojected cruising speed of 420 knots, and that it was presently climb-ing at six thousand feet, heading for nineteen thousand.

With a click, Proctor closed the flight map window. He now knewtwo critical things: Diogenes and Constance had gotten on that Lear-jet, and Diogenes had filed a flight plan with the FAA for Nebraska. AllIFR flights were required to file such plans; trying to fly without onewould generate immediate and unwelcome scrutiny.

Scanning the “Arrivals” panel, he saw that the Learjet with tail num-ber LN303P had landed at Teterboro only half an hour earlier. So itwas not a local charter—Diogenes had used a “repositioned” charterfrom another airport in order to help cover his tracks.

Clever. But not quite clever enough. Because Diogenes had notthought, or known, to block his tail number from such civil aircrafttracking as FlightAware. And as a result, Proctor now knew preciselywhere he was headed.

But such knowledge was of limited use. Because with every passingminute, Diogenes was streaking away from him, toward Nebraska, athundreds of miles per hour.



4

According to the AirNav website he had checked earlier, De-bonAir Aviation Services was the only aircraft charter service cur-rently operating directly on the Teterboro grounds. Driving alongthe row of FBO buildings, Proctor finally spotted the charter’s sign;he parked in a space near the frosted-glass exterior door and then,killing the engine and grabbing his bag and laptop, he quickly exitedthe Rolls.

The interior of the charter service was like others he had seen, com-fortable yet eminently functional: most charter operators were eitherex-commercial pilots or ex-military. There were three desks, only oneof which was occupied. Framed aviation posters hung on the walls. Anopen door at the back of the office led to what was evidently a filingroom.

Proctor sized up the man behind the desk. He was about fifty, withshort iron-gray hair and a muscular build. A nameplate on his deskread bowman. He was looking back at Proctor, evidently assessing aprospective customer.

Proctor considered the situation. What he was about to request wasunusual, and would normally take time—more time than he had—to


arrange. He quickly but methodically weighed his options, followingeach decision tree to its logical conclusion. Then he took an emptyseat before the desk, placing the computer on the floor and keepingthe bug-out bag protectively cradled on his lap. “I need an immediatecharter,” he said.

The man blinked back at him. “Immediate,” he repeated.Proctor nodded.“What’s the rush?” the man asked. His expression, abruptly grow-

ing suspicious, asked the silent question: Illegal?“Nothing like that,” Proctor said. He had already determined that a

degree of honesty was most likely to procure a successful outcome—honesty, followed up with other inducements. “It’s a pursuit opera-tion.”

At this phrasing, the man perked up. He glanced afresh at Proctor—one military man to another. “Rangers?” he asked.

Proctor shook his head. “Special forces.” He glanced at a framedcase on the wall behind Bowman. “Airborne?”

Bowman nodded. The look of suspicion had eased. “Why not go tothe police?”

“It’s a kidnapping intervention. Any involvement with the policemight mean the death of the hostage. The kidnapper is both intel-ligent and extremely violent. Beyond that, it’s a sensitive personalmatter—and time is critical. I know the plane’s tail number and des-tination. I’ve got to reach that destination before the objective van-ishes.”

Bowman nodded again, more slowly. “The destination?”“Eppley Airfield, Omaha.”“Omaha,” the man repeated. “You’re looking at a lot of aviation

fuel, friend. How long would the layover be?”“No layover. It’s a one-way trip.”“I’d still need to charge you for the empty return.”



“Understood.”“Number of passengers?”“You’re looking at him.”A pause. “You realize that a last-minute charter like this—given

the extra red tape and overhead—would come with a significant sur-charge.”

“No problem.”The man seemed to consider this a moment. Then he turned

to a computer on his desk, began tapping keys. Proctor usedthe opportunity to open his own laptop and check the status ofDiogenes’s plane. The white icon of LN303P was still arrowingwestward. It was at twelve thousand feet, approaching its cruisingspeed.

“You’re in luck,” Bowman said. “We’ve got a plane available, a Pi-latus PC-12. We’ve got a licensed pilot at the airport, too; he’s overgetting lunch now.” The man dragged forward a calculator. “Withfuel, ramp fees, landing fees, segment fees, per-diem, one-way fee, anda fifteen percent, ah, usage surcharge, that will be one thousand, twohundred per—”

“That won’t work,” Proctor interrupted.The man eyed him. “Why not?”“The PC-12 is a single turboprop. I need a jet.”“A jet.”“I’m pursuing a Learjet 45. I’ll need something as fast or faster.”The suspicious look returned for a moment. Then Bowman

glanced back at his computer. “We do have one plane available.A Gulfstream Aerospace IV. But it won’t be able to leave anytimesoon.”

“Why not?”“I told you we had a pilot on hand. I didn’t say anything about

two pilots. You can’t fly a jet like that alone.” More tapping of keys.



“I’ve got somebody on standby; I can get him here first thing in themorning. That is, if the additional cost of the Gulfstream won’t be aproblem—”

“Unacceptable.”The man went silent abruptly, staring at Proctor.“I need to leave immediately,” Proctor went on, in an even voice.“And I told you that I can’t have a copilot available until the morn-

ing.”Once again, Proctor considered his options. Violence was usually

his first choice. However, under the circumstances it did not seem welladvised: there were too many variables at play, too much security inand around the area; besides, he needed voluntary cooperation if hewas going to succeed. “What would the normal fee for a round-trip toOmaha be on the Gulfstream IV?”

Once again, the man plied his calculator. “Three thousand, eighthundred per hour.”

“So I’m guessing that—with a one-way flight time of about threehours—we’re looking in the neighborhood of twenty-five thousanddollars.”

“Sounds about right—” the man began, but shut up again whenProctor reached into his bag, pulled out several stacks of hundred-dol-lar bills, and placed them on the desk. “There’s thirty thousand. Let’sgo.”

The man stared at the neat piles of cash. “I just told you, I can’t geta—”

“You’re a licensed pilot, aren’t you?” Proctor asked. With his chin,he indicated another framed item on the wall.

“Yes, but—”Wordlessly, Proctor reached into the bag and took out another five

thousand dollars, which he added to the pile. He was careful to leavethe bag open, displaying many more stacks of hundred-dollar bills—



almost half a million dollars, in total—along with a pair of Glock 22s.The man looked from the money on the desk, to the bag, and

then back to the desk. At last he picked up his phone, dialed. “Ray?We’ve got an emergency charter. Yes, right now. Omaha. No, it’s anempty-leg. I’ll be flying the left-hand seat. Get on back here. Now.” Helistened to chatter on the other end of the line for a minute. “Well, tellher to wait until tomorrow, damn it.”

During this exchange, Proctor had once again taken the oppor-tunity to monitor Diogenes’s flight via FlightAware. To his surpriseand dismay, he saw that—just moments ago—the plane had veeredoff its original course and was now on a heading of zero four zero.A glance at the flight information window on the right side of thescreen showed a new destination: no longer KOMA, bur rather CYQX.Looking this up, Proctor determined that it was the code for GanderInternational Airport in Newfoundland.

So Diogenes had not been content merely to hire a repositionedcharter for his escape from Teterboro. He had also, it seemed, madea midair FAA request for a new flight plan, diverting his plane fromOmaha to Gander. Just to make sure he wasn’t followed.

While Proctor was examining his laptop, Bowman had made a briefseries of calls. “Okay,” the man said, scooping up the piles of cash. “Mypilot’s on the way over, and we’re fueling the plane now. I’ll get a flightplan filed on DUATS and we can leave immediately—”

“There’s been a change in destination,” Proctor interrupted. “It’sno longer Omaha. It’s Gander, Newfoundland.”

“Newfoundland?” Bowman frowned. “Just a minute. Now we’retalking international, and—”

“It doesn’t matter. The flight distance is shorter. I’ll pay whatever’snecessary.” Proctor took another five grand out of his bag, waved it amoment, put it back. “Just do what you need to do. And let’s get thefuck out of here.”



This unexpected expletive, delivered in Proctor’s standard mono-tone, seemed to be the most effective persuader at all. Bowman ex-haled, then nodded slowly. “Give me a minute to make the prepara-tions,” he said in a strange tone that sounded half-pleased, half-de-flated. “We’ll be wheels-up in ten minutes.”



5

The flight plan from Teterboro to Gander International coveredeleven hundred miles on a nonstop path over Cape Ann, Mas-sachusetts; Nova Scotia; and Newfoundland. Including time spenttaxiing, taking off, and decelerating on the approach descent, esti-mated flying time was one hour and fifty-one minutes. It wasn’t untilone hour and twenty minutes into the flight that Proctor managed tospeak with the Gander Air Traffic Control.

Proctor had satisfied himself that Gander was, in fact, Diogenes’sdestination. There had been no further deviations—in fact, his planewas now on final approach. Although Diogenes had gotten the initialjump, as a result of his brief deviation toward Omaha—and becausethe two jets were evenly matched in speed—he was now no more thanhalf an hour ahead of Proctor. However, the Gulfstream’s pilots, Bow-man and another man named Ray Krisp, were sticklers for protocol—as, Proctor knew, were most professional pilots—and they had stead-fastly refused to let him use their radio, no matter how much he’doffered in cash.

Finally, as the plane began its descent trajectory, Bowman picked upthe radio after the handoff to Gander tower. “Gander, this is Novem-


ber Three Niner Seven Bravo at four thousand, five hundred withinformation X-ray inbound for landing,” he said.

There was a crackle of static. “Niner Seven Bravo Squawk, fourfour five two, clear direct to runway three. Contact ground pointnine.”

“Clear to land runway three, Niner Seven Bravo,” said Bowman,and moved to replace the mike. As he did, Proctor’s hand shot out,grabbed it, and—stepping back out of the reach of the strapped-in pi-lots—pressed the transmit button.

“Gander ATC,” he said. “An LJ45, repeat a Learjet 45, tail numberLN303P, is just now landing on runway three. Hold that plane on thetaxiway.”

There was a brief silence over the radio. “This is Gander Control,”came the voice. “Say again?”

“Hold Learjet, tail number LN303P,” said Proctor. “Do not allowthe passengers to deplane. There is a hostage on board.”

Both Bowman and Krisp were in the process of unfastening theirbelts.

“Who is this speaking?” said the air traffic controller. “This is not alaw enforcement frequency.”

“I repeat: there is a hostage on board that plane. Notify the authorities.”“Any such request must be made through law enforcement chan-

nels. Do you copy, Three Niner Seven Bravo?”Bowman was standing now, facing Proctor, his expression dark.

Wordlessly, he put out his hand for the radio.Proctor was about to speak into the radio again, but even as he did

so he realized his attempt had failed. He’d run into a wall of Canadianbureaucracy—as he should have expected.

“Give me the radio,” Bowman said.Even as the pilot spoke, the radio squawked again. “Three Niner

Seven Bravo, do you copy?”



“All you’re going to do is get this aircraft seized,” Bowman said.“Not the one you’re pursuing. And get us all held for questioning.”

Proctor hesitated. His eyes shifted toward his bug-out bag, slungover one of the front passenger seats.

“What are you going to do—shoot us?” Bowman said. “That’s notgoing to get you anywhere but crashed. Now: give me the radio.”

Wordlessly, Proctor handed it to him.Quickly, Bowman raised it to his lips. “This is Three Niner Seven

Bravo. Ignore that last. A passenger made his way into the cockpit.”The voice from Gander tower responded. “Roger that. Do you re-

quire assistance upon landing?”Bowman looked at Proctor as he spoke. “Ah, that’s a negative.

Passenger’s just a little tipsy. He’s been locked out and the cockpit se-cured.”

Bowman kept his eyes on Proctor as he put the radio back, took hisseat once again. “That’s your forty thousand bucks talking, pal,” hesaid. “Otherwise, we’d turn you over to the cops for pulling a trick likethat.”

Proctor returned the stare. At last, he turned away and headed backto his seat. He had done all he could, and that last effort had been amistake. His judgment was off. He was neither a cop nor a federal offi-cer. He could not force the authorities to act, especially the authoritiesof a foreign country; and it was, he realized, foolish to have tried. Hewould have to deal with Diogenes himself—back on terra firma.

And he was capable of doing so. He’d come this far. Gander wasthe easternmost major airport on the North American continent, tee-tering on the edge of the Atlantic. The question now was this: wasNewfoundland the ultimate destination of Diogenes? Or a mere way-point to somewhere else? In many ways, Proctor inclined towardthe former. It was a perfect destination—in the middle of nowhere,surrounded by a vast and empty landscape: an ideal place to go to



ground. The Lear’s limited range would make a transatlantic flight adangerous stretch, at the very edge of possibility.

Once on the ground, Proctor would do what he did best: trackdown his prey. It might take a little time. But there would be noplace for Diogenes to run now; no opportunity to make fresh arrange-ments. Proctor would press the chase too hard for that. His quarrywas burdened with an unwilling, dangerous hostage. No, the pursuitwould not be long—it was just a question of exactly how it would playout.

Of course, he realized he had no real proof Diogenes and Constancewere on the Learjet: just the eyewitness at the Teterboro flight school.But the lack of potential escape routes, the nature of the repositionedcharter, the abrupt change of destination in midair—it all smacked ofDiogenes. Proctor’s gut told him as much. Besides, it was the only leadhe had.

These thoughts occupied him as the plane descended toward Gan-der’s runway three. Out of the window, he watched a bleak, gray-green sprawl of vegetation give way to a wide strip of asphalt. Therewas a screech as the wheels touched down, then a roar as the engineswent into reverse. As they decelerated down the runway, Proctorleaned in closer to the window, looking at the planes moving alongthe taxiways or parked at gates, searching for the Lear. It was nowherein sight.

But then he saw something. Directly across the intersecting lanesof asphalt from the runway of his own decelerating plane, he saw twodistant figures emerge from a hangar and walk toward a parked jet:a Bombardier Challenger, by the look of it. A plane that could easilymanage transcontinental distances—and one he could not pursue inhis current charter. The first figure was a young woman in an olivetrench coat, dark-haired head lowered. Constance. Immediately behindher, with one hand on her shoulder and another placed against her



back, was a man. The man turned, glancing left and right . . . and evenat distance Proctor could unmistakably make out the tall, thin figure,neatly trimmed beard, and ginger hair of Diogenes.

Constance was walking strangely, unwillingly: frog-marched, Proc-tor realized. No doubt Diogenes had a gun concealed in the hand thatwas pressed against her back.

A rush of adrenaline burned through his body and he turned fromthe window, but his plane was still decelerating—it would be minutesbefore he could manage even an emergency exit.

He turned back to the window. Now the two figures were climbingthe steps into the passenger compartment of the Bombardier. At thevery last moment before Constance disappeared into the darkness ofthe cabin, Proctor saw her begin to struggle; saw Diogenes—quick aslightning—reach into his coat, pull out a canvas bag, and slip it overher head . . . and then the door closed behind them and the abruptly vi-olent tableau was obscured.

By the time his plane had taxied to a stop, the Bombardier was air-borne.



6

During the flight from Teterboro, Proctor had used part of theflying time to research the airport and town of Gander. In the 1940s,Gander International had been a critical refueling point for flightsheaded to the British Isles and beyond. Now, however, modern jetswith far greater range had rendered this role obsolete. At present,Gander was used more frequently for emergency landings: transatlan-tic aircraft suffering from medical or mechanical problems. On 9/11,with U.S. airspace closed following the destruction of the Twin Tow-ers, Gander had briefly played an important role in Operation YellowRibbon, receiving over three dozen re-routed flights in one day. Otherthan that, however, the airport was a relatively somnolent place, withmilitary operations and cargo flights to Iceland the order of the day.The nearby town was flat, cold, and depressing: windswept and tree-less, with a gray sky spitting snow.

As Proctor pondered what to do next, he hazarded a guess regard-ing something else about Gander. Because of its remote location andrelative proximity to international destinations, it just might be a placewhere a certain kind of pilot could wash up: air force discharge, ex-air-


line, transient—a flyboy who, for a price, might be willing to considerunusual or even questionable service.

He was presently seated at a table in the Crosswinds bar, one of aseries of ramshackle structures that perched, limpet-like, just beyondthe terminals, runways, and FBO buildings of Gander. The place wasempty save for him and the bartender. He glanced at his watch: almostfour thirty pm. Diogenes had taken off just over thirty minutes before.He tried to ignore this fact as he took another sip of his Heineken andwaited. He had spent the last half hour roaming the airport and its pe-riphery, making discreet inquiries about just such a pilot, and he hadfinally been directed to this bar.

Once again, Diogenes was a step—perhaps two—ahead of him.He’d anticipated being followed to Gander, and had a fresh jet fueledand ready to take off as soon as he’d arrived—this time, on atransoceanic flight. His failure to block his tail number from civil air-craft tracking sites like FlightAware hadn’t been a failure, after all—rather, he was so confident in his ability to elude capture that he sim-ply hadn’t bothered. Or perhaps he was enjoying the chase: it wastypical of Diogenes to prefer an elaborate game to something lessrisky and more straightforward. Why else had he allowed him to live?The safe thing would have been to give him a killing dose of sodiumpentothal—but, Proctor mused, that wouldn’t have been as much fun.And surely by now Diogenes knew he was being pursued, perhaps asa result of Proctor’s stupid—he saw that now—radio call to Gandertower. His response to the kidnapping of Constance was a catastrophicfailure, perhaps the worst failure of his life; but he had to push thataside and get himself under control, to suppress the emotion and furythat was warping his judgment—and proceed with cold calculation.

Using his laptop, Proctor saw that the Bombardier had filed a flightplan to Shannon, Ireland. Given the fact that the plane was now wellover the Atlantic and hadn’t deviated from its initial flight plan, Proc-



tor felt reasonably sure Shannon was the true destination. Proctor’stwo pilots from DebonAir Aviation Services would fly him no far-ther—no surprise, given that their aircraft did not have transatlanticrange. They had practically tossed him out, threatening to alert theauthorities if he didn’t immediately pay up and deplane.

Proctor needed a different kind of pilot for the pursuit ahead, onewith a looser interpretation of rules and regulations, if he was goingto catch Diogenes. He had been given the name of just one such pilot,who would be arriving at any moment.

The image of Constance—the back of her head shaking violently asthe bag had been pulled over it—came back to him. He took anotherswig of his beer, pushed the image away.

At that moment the establishment’s front door opened and a manentered. He was relatively short—about five foot seven—but he car-ried himself with the confidence of somebody who had won his shareof bar fights. He was in his early forties, with a large pompadour ofgleaming black hair, and he wore a leather bomber jacket scuffed fromdecades of service. A thin scar ran from the edge of his left eye back toa capacious sideburn. He greeted the bartender as he took a stool atthe bar.

Proctor looked him over carefully. This was the man he’d been toldabout.

Picking up his Heineken, his laptop, and his bag, he walked overand took a seat next to the man. As a scotch on the rocks was placedbefore him, Proctor put down a twenty. “That’s on me,” he told thebartender.

As the fellow nodded and walked off to break the bill, the man inthe leather jacket looked over at him appraisingly. “Thanks, mate,” hesaid in a working-class English accent.

“Roger Shapely?” Proctor said, draining his beer.“That’s right. And you are?”



“The name’s Proctor.” The bartender came back with the changeand Proctor pointed at his own empty beer bottle. “I’m told you’re aman who can take people places.”

The appraising look deepened. “That depends.”“On what?”“On who I’m taking, and where they’re going.”“You’d be taking me. To Ireland.”The man named Shapely raised his eyebrows. “Ireland?”The fresh beer arrived. Proctor nodded, took a swig.“Wish I could help you out. But my plane’s a Cessna Citation A/SP.

Not equipped for hopping the pond.” Shapely smiled ruefully.“I know all about your plane. It’s powered by two Pratt and Whit-

ney JT15-D turbofans, and it’s been modified from the standard two-crew model to be flyable by a single pilot. It’s also been modified—byyou—to carry fewer passengers and extra fuel. Fuel enough to get youalmost four thousand miles.”

Shapely’s eyes narrowed. “Somebody’s been doing a lot of talking.”Proctor shrugged. “Hasn’t gone farther than me.”Silence for a moment. Shapely took a sip of his scotch. He was

clearly thinking—and sizing Proctor up. “What’s the job—exactly?”“Somebody left this airport forty minutes ago, bound for Shannon.

He’s got something I want. I need to go after him.”“You mean, chase him?”“Yes.”“That’s a bit of a lark, isn’t it? If this is about drugs, count me out.”“Nothing like that.”Shapely pondered this. “What kind of bird we talking about?”“Bombardier Challenger 300.”The man shook his head. “No good. Cruising speed’s more than

fifty miles per hour faster than my Citation.”“All the more reason to get a move on.”



“I can’t take you to Shannon.” As Proctor looked up from his beer,he saw the pilot break into a sly smile. “But I can get you close. If wehave a tailwind, that is: any headwind and we won’t make it as far asthe Irish coast. What do you weigh?”

“One seventy-five.”“Any cargo?”Proctor pointed a thumb at his laptop and bag.“Can’t bring anything else. We’ll need a full load of avgas for that

kind of hop as it is.” Shapely scratched his head, clearly doing a mentalcalculation. Then he leaned over in his seat, gazing out the window ofthe bar toward the airport’s wind sock, just visible from their vantagepoint. “Look’s like the wind’s in our favor. Now it’s just a question ofmoney.”

“I’ll also need you to keep the flight off the books. Just in case Ire-land’s not our final stop.”

“Round the world in eighty days, is it? Then it’s not a question ofmoney. It’s a question of more money.”

“Eight dollars a mile. Round-trip fare. If we leave right away.”Shapely paused, considering. “If you’re some kind of cop, this is en-

trapment. You know that, don’t you? You couldn’t charge me withshit.”

“No cop. Just somebody in need of a ride. And a pilot who doesn’task questions.”

Shapely drained his drink. “Twenty thousand, up front. Ten morewhen we get there.”

Proctor saw that the bartender’s back was turned. He opened hisbag, removed several stacks of hundred-dollar bills, and passed themto the pilot. “Here’s thirty.”

The man fanned them quickly, then shoved them into the pocketof his coat. “I’m assuming you’d rather avoid customs, luggage or noluggage.”



“Right.”Shapely nodded. Then he patted the pocket of his jacket that con-

tained the money. “Let me stow this somewhere, make a call or twoto set things up on the far end. Meet me at North Gander Aviation infifteen minutes. It’s beside hangar four.”

Then he stood up, gave Proctor a thumbs-up, and quickly exited theempty bar.



7

Shapely hadn’t been exaggerating about the weight. All fixturessave for the two pilot’s seats had been removed, and the entire pas-senger cabin retrofitted with additional avgas tanks. Flying withoutsuch niceties as FAA regulations made this charter somewhat lessexpensive than DebonAir had been, but it made it a lot less comfort-able, too.

They took off a few minutes after five, Shapely logging the tripas a VFR sightseeing jaunt up to Twillingate so he wouldn’t needto file a flight plan. Once out of sight of the airport, however, heturned the plane eastward, and within fifteen minutes they wereover the Atlantic. Here, Shapely descended, flying low, only a fewhundred feet above the waves. Despite the alarming altitude, hewas clearly a skilled pilot, and one—apparently—with very fewscruples about their ultimate destination, so long as the money wasgood. Proctor could not even begin to guess what kind of unusualbusiness ventures would have required Shapely to make such in-teresting modifications to his plane. It was small and relatively old,one of the earlier turbofan business jets, and the cockpit was tightand uncomfortable. As they headed east over the ocean, moving


out of local radar range, Shapely increased altitude to thirty-threethousand feet: to “save gas,” he explained, with a hurried half adozen words about atmospheric pressure. The sky turned indigoand then black as the sun set and they flew into the shadow of theturning earth.

Proctor made some calculations in his head. Their plane had acruising speed just shy of 450 miles per hour; as Shapely had pointedout, Diogenes’s Bombardier was capable of 500. The only thing theywere evenly matched in, thanks to Shapely’s modifications, was range.Given his plane’s speed advantage, Proctor estimated Diogenes wouldreach Shannon Airport in seven hours of flying. It would take themeight and a half to reach the Irish coast. Shapely hadn’t said why theycouldn’t land at Shannon; Proctor assumed it had to do with the near-guerrilla nature of their flight and the need to avoid customs. It didn’tmatter; given his head start, Diogenes would arrive in Ireland at leasttwo and a half hours before them.

Proctor used his computer to check on the Bombardier’s flight pathagain, then he shut the laptop, made himself as comfortable as pos-sible, closed his eyes, and—with military discipline—tuned out theCeltic music that Shapely played incessantly over the aircraft’s soundsystem. He tried not to think of the stormy Atlantic skimming by be-low him; tried not to think of that final image of Constance beingforced into the waiting jet. Most of all, he tried not to speculate onwhat Diogenes had in store for her—because he knew with convictionthat, whatever it was, it could not be good.

It was just after 5 am local time when their plane once again reachedland. Mere minutes later, they were landing at Connasheer Aero-drome, a private airport in the Aran Islands with a runway just longenough to accommodate the Citation. While Proctor consulted hislaptop one more time, Shapely got out of the plane and went over tothe FBO—the aerodrome’s lone building—where he was met by the



airport operator, apparently manning the facility alone. The two em-braced, and from their warm chatter it appeared Shapely made thisparticular run with some frequency. The pilot returned to the plane afew minutes later, smiling broadly.

“My friend’s brother runs a taxi service out of Inishmore,” he said.“If you catch the Rossaveal ferry, you could be at Shannon in—”

“I’m not going to Shannon,” Proctor said. “Not anymore.”Shapely went silent.Proctor indicated his laptop. “The Bombardier refueled at Shannon

and took off again.”“Headed where?”Proctor hesitated a moment. “Mauritania. Allegedly.”Shapely frowned, standing motionless, the door to the pilot’s cabin

half-open. “Mauritania? Christ, mate, that’s . . .what, West Africa?”“West Central Africa. Two thousand two hundred miles.”Shapely passed a hand through his pompadour. “And you want me

to . . . ?” He raised his bushy eyebrows.“Yes.”“I don’t know. Bloody Africa . . . I’ve had a couple of run-ins there

I’m in no hurry to repeat.”“We’ll just be refueling and taking off again. I’m pretty sure Mauri-

tania may be just another waypoint for refueling the Challenger.”Shapely was still frowning. “Which airport?”“Akjoujt. Tiny. Far from normal commercial lanes. The kind of

place where they don’t ask a lot of questions. Look—just another fiveand a half flying hours, give or take.”

When Shapely said nothing further, Proctor reached into his bag,took out a handful of stacked bills. “I gave you thirty thousand forthe flight from Gander.” He waved the stack at Shapely. “Here’s an-other thirty-five thousand. That will more than cover the Mauritanialeg. And there’s even more if we have to keep going.”



Shapely stared at the money. Sixty-five thousand dollars—more,Proctor guessed, than the man would make in a year of whatever spe-cialized kind of smuggling he dabbled in.

After a minute, the pilot sighed. “Bollocks,” he muttered, holdingout his hand for the second stack. “All right. All right. Let me gas up,check the engines, and eyeball my charts.”

Within twenty minutes they were airborne once again and headeddue south, over international waters, just skirting the west coast ofIreland. Shapely had taken a couple of small white pills from a plasticbottle, popped them into his mouth, and washed them down with agiant mug of coffee.

Now Proctor was once again examining his laptop. Despite theodds, he reflected, they were lucky in at least two ways. First, landingat Shannon had cost Diogenes time: time in customs; the refuelingdelays common at a large airport; probably a crew rotation. All thishad shaved half an hour from his lead, cutting it back to just twohours. Second, the route to Mauritania was almost entirely over wa-ter. A straight shot to Akjoujt meant they would barely graze thewesternmost tip of Portugal, avoiding Europe and all its potential in-flight complications. The only body of land they would pass over wasWestern Sahara, a disputed territory too preoccupied with its owntroubles to pay any attention to their plane—so long, that is, as no en-gine problems or other mechanical trouble forced them to make anunscheduled landing.

Proctor knew next to nothing about Mauritania, save that the coun-try consisted almost entirely of the ever-expanding Sahara desert andthat it was racked by poverty, child labor, and even slavery. He couldthink of no reason why Diogenes would be heading for such a flyspeckof an airport, save one: a refueling stop. Shannon had obviously beensuch a stop: the Bombardier would have exhausted its fuel crossingthe Atlantic. Clearly, Diogenes was not approaching his ultimate des-



tination, whatever that might be, in a straight line: rather, the rangeof his aircraft was dictating his stops. And Proctor’s aircraft trackingapp specifically showed a “CL30”—code for a Bombardier Challenger300—en route to Akjoujt from Ireland, with no deviation in flightplan.

Once they reached Akjoujt, however, Proctor knew that hewould no longer be able to rely on Internet sites to track Dio-genes’s movements. At such a tiny Mauritanian airport—an idealstop for private planes in a hurry and with no interest in answeringmany questions—there would be ways around such formalities asthe filing of flight plans. Proctor would have to make use of othermethods to determine the man’s ultimate destination—because hefelt in his bones that Akjoujt would be the penultimate stop. Fourhops in a Bombardier or Learjet was enough to reach almostany destination in the world—and Diogenes was already on histhird leg.

They reached Akjoujt—a flat, hot, desolate place, dry as mummydust, with the sun boring like a heat lamp out of the sky—not longafter eleven. Proctor quickly located an airport official who spoke de-cent English and—for a hefty consideration—was only too happy totalk about the big, gleaming Bombardier that had landed there. Yes, ithad stopped to refuel. Yes, it had taken off again. The man knew itsfinal destination, because he had overheard one of the pilots mentionit. The plane was headed for the Hosea Kutako Airport in Windhoek,Namibia.

Given his lead, and his faster aircraft, Diogenes should have beenover three hours ahead of them . . . except for a circumstance that theairport official now related. The Bombardier had been delayed takingoff from Akjoujt. The man didn’t know what the reason was, exactly,except that the delay had to do with a problem involving one of the



passengers. Ultimately, Diogenes’s jet had lifted off for Namibia justninety minutes before.

Proctor considered the possibility that Diogenes had bribed or liedto the man, providing him with a false destination. After all, therewas no way he could track his quarry’s plane any longer using normaltechnology. But his gut, which he always trusted, told him this manwas speaking the truth. Besides, if Diogenes had already paid him tolie, the official wouldn’t have charged Proctor so much money for solittle information.

He climbed back into the Citation. “We’re headed for Namibia,” hetold Shapely.

The man stared at him with red-rimmed eyes. “You’re bullshittingme, right?”

“No.”“You know how far that is from here?”“Yes. Three thousand, six hundred miles.”Scratching one of his sideburns, the pilot said, “That’s nine more

hours of flying time. I’ll be a wreck.”“It’s the last leg. You can sleep for a week once we get there.”“Do you know how many hours over the FAA-maximum I am al-

ready, mate?”“I didn’t think trifles like FAA regulations concerned you.” And

Proctor gave his bag, and the cash it contained, a meaningful pat.“Bloody hell.” Shapely shook his head in disbelief. “Well, it’s your

funeral. I’m so fagged I’m likely to augur in, or fly us straight into amountain.” And with that, he popped a few more of the little whitepills.

Hosea Kutako International Airport was large and—at quarter toeleven in the evening, local time—surprisingly busy. While nowherenear as strict as an American or European facility, the tower had



questioned their lack of a flight plan, and Shapely had been forcedto come up with a complicated story involving a leaky gas tank,trouble with his communications equipment, and a vulture’s closeencounter with one of the jet intakes. Proctor had been surprisedthe pilot was still capable of such a feat of imagination: he’d beenflying almost twenty-four hours straight now, and his jauntiness waslong gone.

“I’m a corpse, brother,” he told Proctor as they turned off runway26 and taxied toward the airport’s lone terminal. “If you want to flyany farther, you’re going to have to grow wings.”

“You’ve done well,” Proctor said, glancing out the windscreen.Then he froze. There, parked on the tarmac, was Diogenes’s Chal-lenger.

“Stop,” he told Shapely.“But—”“Just stop.” As the plane came to a halt just barely off the main run-

way, Diogenes reached into his bag, pulled out another few stacks ofhundred-dollar bills, quickly counted off forty thousand, and tossedthem at the pilot with a hurried thanks. Then he opened the passengerdoor and was off, racing toward the parked jet even before the Cita-tion had rolled to a halt.

Three hours, he thought as he ran. He’s just three hours ahead of me.It had been an exhausting game of cat and mouse—from plane

to plane, over oceans, over continents, keeping on Diogenes’s taildespite all the man’s stratagems. The Bombardier wasn’t going any-where—one of its engine cowlings was up, and the door to thepassenger cabin was open, the deplaning ladder still down. Diogenesand Constance wouldn’t be far, now. With any luck, they were stillin Windhoek.

With a little more luck, they might even still be at the airport—per-haps in the arrival hall.



Reaching the jet, Proctor raced up the steps two at a time into thepassenger cabin. It was empty, but the door to the cockpit was ajar. In-side, a man wearing a pilot’s uniform was seated in the left-hand seat.He was scribbling something on a clipboard.

Proctor ducked into the cockpit, grabbed the man by his lapel, andbodily lifted him out of the chair. “Are you the pilot from Shannon?”he asked.

The man blinked at him in surprise. “What the hell—?”Proctor tightened his grip on the collar, adding pressure to the

man’s neck. “Answer the question.”“I’m . . . I’m one of them,” he said.“The other?”“He left the airport an hour ago. He already gave his statement. I

gave mine, too.”“Statement?”“About the tragedy.” The pilot was recovering his self-possession.

He was evidently American. “Who are you?”“I’m asking the questions,” Proctor said. “What tragedy? And who

were your passengers?”“There were two of them. A man and a woman.”“Names?”“They wouldn’t give us names.”“Describe them to me.”“The man was about your height. Slender. Closely trimmed beard.

Strange eyes—one was a different color than the other.” A pause. “Hehad a scar on one cheek.”

“And the woman?”“She was young, maybe early twenties. Dark hair. Pretty. Didn’t get

much of a look at her, actually. She was drunk.”“And that was it? Just the two?”“Yes. At least . . . at first.”



Proctor tightened his grip on the man’s collar. “What do youmean—at first? What’s this about a tragedy?”

The pilot hesitated. “Well . . . it was the young woman.”“What about her?” Proctor asked. “What about the young woman?”The pilot looked down, then raised his eyes again to meet Proctor’s

gaze. “She died midflight.”



The Obsidian Chamber - Douglas Preston · 2 DOUGLAS PRESTON & LINCOLN CHILD...

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